Category: aviation security

“I am unwilling to let anything cast a shadow on the outstanding work done 24 hours a day, 7 days a week by my colleagues at the FAA. They run the finest and safest aviation system in the world and I am grateful that I had the opportunity to work alongside them.” .Assorted notes on the latest round of breaking news on the aviation beat. Where to start?

Okay, Randy Babbitt. What is there really to say besides bemoan the tragedy that his arrest in Virginia on Saturday for driving under the influence of alcohol will likely cost the FAA administrator his job.

I have a few correspondents who are delighted schadenfreude-style that the nation’s most highly-visible former airline pilot (okay, second to you-know-who) is now on administrative leave which can only be to provide time to collect facts and figure out what statement will accompany his resignation.

On the other hand, I have correspondents who are as gob-smacked by the news as I was when it hit the wires on Monday. Granted, running the FAA with all that’s going on these days is one ongoing reason to drink. But with just news accounts to go on, my initial reaction is that the administrator has made a terrible error in judgment. Had the Federal Aviation Administration and the National Transportation Safety Board not been in a tizzy for the entire length of Mr. Babbitt’s time at the FAA over the very subject of judgment, there might be forgiveness for this lapse.

Incensed is how I was feeling on Sunday when I heard the report of the little old lady en route to Florida who claimed security agents at the JFK airport checkpoint strip searched her before allowing her on jetBlue flight. Incensed because there’s nothing about this story that rings true. I am baffled by standards of professionalism in journalism in which the comments of one side in a dispute are reported without evidence or logic to support the validity of the claim.

Lenore Zimmerman, 84, requested a private pat-down screening at the airport and two female agents accompanied her into a room to conduct it, I am told by Greg Soule of the Transportation Security Administration. (You can read the TSA’s version of the story here.)

The screening apparently involved the removal of Ms. Zimmerman’s back brace or money belt. In an effort to understand the gap between two versions of the story, my mind makes the leap that from the removal of that device, Ms. Zimmerman has come to believe that her privacy was invaded. Perhaps it may even have seemed, upon reflection during a 2-hour flight that the agents looked in her pants and underpants during the process because that is what she told reporters. She wound up her story with a promise to sue.

But the information from the TSA doesn’t support the passenger’s claim about the length of the screening or that she was asked to remove her clothing during the search. She did not complain to anyone at the time, or appear disturbed upon exiting the screening room.

“Nothing unusual was depicted on the CCTV (closed circuit TV) as the passenger and two female officers entered and exited the room,” the TSA blog reports. “The wheelchair attendant assisted the passenger in departing the checkpoint area for the gate.”

Since Sunday the story has gone viral. And is that really a surprise? The news – veracity notwithstanding – has fed the appetites of travelers who cannot get enough of TSA bashing.

There was a time when the likely accuracy of what someone said was a factor in determining what and how an event would be reported. No longer. Certain claims on certain subjects require little more than that they be made. Transportation security and airline indignities are two such subjects.

I’m not starting off the week or leaving you dear readers on a downer. Rather, I’m going to recommend that you read the intriguing analysis of American Airline‘s bankruptcy filing by William Swelbar (some great name eh?) of MIT who writes on his Swelblog that the legacy carrier could emerge from its woes intact and unmerged. A little optimism for the beginning of the week, well that’s a good thing.

Airlines are making billions from the baggage fees they started charging in 2005. In the last four years, they’ve raked in some $6 billion as I reported in The New York Times this spring. Now comes Senator Mary Landrieu of Louisiana with a plan that will mandate that airlines include one checked bag in the price of a ticket. The senator recognizes that there is a problem. Her solution, however is all wrong. …

While airlines are raking in money by the suitcase-full, they are sloughing off on passengers and the Transportation Security Administration, the burdensome consequences of bag fees. The TSA estimates checkpoint workers are inspecting 59 million more bags as people bring their luggage with them on the airplane. …

But let’s think about the airlines for just a minute. For an industry heavily reliant on oil, the check bag fee can be the difference between red and black ink on the balance sheet. And really, considering that on an airplane, weight equals fuel, what’s wrong with an airline charging to move our stuff? …

Now, just in time for the Thanksgiving holiday travel period, Sen. Landrieu is proposing an Airline Passenger Basics Act that would require airlines to accommodate one checked bag and one carry on bag in the ticket price. It would also require the airlines to provide unspecified “basic amenities”. …

When government starts telling private businesses what they can and cannot charge for, I think we are on a slippery slope. “The government deregulated aviation in 1978,” said Steve Lott, a spokesman for the Air Transport Association. “Having the government dictate prices and services is a 30-year step backwards.” …

There’s also something arbitrary about focusing on airlines. Last month I rented a car from Avis and before I drove off, I had to navigate through no less than seven ancillary-fee related services; from turning on the satellite car radio to activating the tollway pass. Why is it okay for the government to tell airlines what they can charge while leaving other businesses alone? I put this question to Jay Sorensen, a guru on airline revenue who runs IdeaWorks, an aviation revenue consulting firm. …

“What’s next, the ‘French Fry Act’ which would require McDonald’s to include an order fries with every hamburger?” Jay asked, rhetorically. “Congress has no business legislating the price of services offered by a private company.” …

TSA screening costs have increased by $260 million a year, the senator’s office said in a press release. “These additional costs are the direct result of airlines’ checked baggage fees and taxpayers are being forced to pick up the tab.”…

To the extent that airline baggage fees have impacted a government provided service, the airlines have some financial obligation. Sen. Landrieu should be trying to figure out a way to re-capture from the airlines what their baggage fee decision has cost the rest of us, without legislating the way airlines provide services. Its doable, but requires something a little more thoughtful than playing to the highly excitable American air traveler. …

You may have heard the joke about the airline pilot who goes to hell only to find on arrival that rather than an eternity suffering fire and brimstone, his hell will be spent doing endless walk-arounds in blizzard conditions. (That’s not the punch line, but this is a family blog, and I can’t print the rest of it. Ask Jim Hall or see me later.) …

Another version of pilot hell might be something like what happened to the captain of a Chautauqua Airlines/Delta Connection flight earlier this week en route from Ashville, North Carolina to New York.…

The poor pilot just wanted a quick “biological break” about 30 minutes before landing at LaGuardia. He might have been inspired by the air traffic controller telling the crew that they would take their place in a holding pattern. Or perhaps he was remembering the recent antics of the actorGerard Depardieu on a CityJet flight in August.…

Whatever, when the captain tried to return to the cockpit, he found the bathroom door would not open. A passenger seated nearby heard the man pounding and tried to help, but no dice. The door was shut tight.…

Meanwhile back on the flight deck, the first officer was getting more and more nervous – wondering why his captain went AWOL. What could be taking so long? The Embraer 145 is 98 feet long even walking slowly he should have returned already. With him in the cockpit, it is reported, was the sole flight attendant, who was required to be in the cockpit in the absence of the second pilot. …

So that when they heard a knock on the door, and a heavily accented voice tried to explain the situation, the first officer was unsure what to do. Sure, it could be the truth, then again, what if it was not? Who in the post-9/11 world wants to err on the trusting side? So here’s what he told the air traffic controller as transcribed from the website liveatc.net.…

“We are 180 knots 10,000 uh, can we leave the frequency for a minute? We are going to try to, uh contact dispatch. The captain disappeared in the back, and, uh, I have someone with a thick foreign accent trying to access the cockpit.…

Military jets were notified. The FBI was called and the first officer was advised to declare an emergency and get that airplane on the ground. It was at this point that the captain finally forced his way out of the bathroom and returned to the flight deck.…

The world spins on in all its marvelous complexity and we think we are in control. Then we are treated to a tragicomedy that shows us we are just hangin’ on by the straps pretending there is no force greater than our own magnificent minds. But we.be.wrong.…

One never knows when a good story will result in a tip that leads to another and this week I’ve had a double dose. After writing on my travel blog GO HOW about how arbitrary the decisionmaking can be when it comes to removing passengers from airplanes, I received accounts from three separate sources that just baffle me.

Saying that his recent removal from a Finnair flight was embarrassing (I have no doubt) business class passenger – let’s call him Hannu – had to purchase another ticket and was not reimbursed for his original fare of €2800. I wasn’t there and I don’t know Hannu, but he claims the episode began when he complained to a flight attendant about a delay.

“Now you will think that I probably behaved like a drunk or a rebel, but that is not at all the case,” he wrote to me. “I complained one time about the delay to a flight attendant, in a polite manner, not loud, not using any foul language or body gestures.” …

Hannu says this was his third time on this particular flight and the third time the flight was delayed. The previous delays had resulted in his luggage not being transferred to his onward connection, so he was naturally concerned. …

I can’t weight in here with an opinion about who was right in this situation and I’m still waiting to hear back from Finnair, but according to Hannu when he registered a complaint about being taken off the plane he was told that the airline has “the right to remove any passenger if he makes the staff or other customer feel uncomfortable.” …

Two separate readers – strangers to each other but both on a United flight from Portland to Chicago tell a remarkably similar story about what happened to them on Tuesday, on the very day my article on the subject of passenger evictions appeared in The New York Times. …

As these two men – one a lawyer the other a retiree – tell the story, as they waited for their flight to take off from Portland International Airport, the passenger I’ll call Mike, complained to the flight attendant that the public address system was uncomfortably loud and asked that she lower the volume. …

After walking to the front of the plane she “returned stating that nothing could be done and that if passengers were concerned about hearing damage that the plane could return to the gate and that those passengers could deplane,” according to a man who was seated in front of Mike.…

Where Mike clearly erred was in replying to this obviously harried flight attendant that he was “merely asking” if she could lower the volume because the plane did return to the gate and four United employees took Mike off. …

Further, those passengers objecting to this treatment including my other correspondent, the retiree, were told that they could be ejected too. I am told a chorus of “Nos” greeted the flight attendants announcement that Mike was being removed — a voice vote that many passengers objected to the action, but perhaps also attributable to fears of the delay that this action would inevitably cause. After all, the airplane was already taxiing when the pilot turned it around.…

In conclusion, the retiree told me he felt intimidated by the flight attendant’s threat and described the atmosphere on the plane saying, “It is difficult to describe the feeling of powerlessness that we felt in this situation.”…

I realize we are talking about 68 million people every day who board an airplane somewhere in the world. There are going to be a few crackpots in the lot. But let’s talk turkey here.

As they move us from place to place, airlines are responsible for assuring security and providing a civil environment. Their role now, teetering as it does on giving single employees the power to be both judge and jury is dangerous territory. …

Passengers, my message to you is this: YOU ARE responsible for behaving to a high standard and you have a right to expect the same of your fellow travelers. Airlines: YOU ARE responsible for hiring capable people and training them to use common sense and good judgment. When they fail to do so, YOU ARE responsible for removing those employees from the airplane. ‘Nuff said.…

After blogging here about the ditching of a Cessna 310 off the coast of Hawaii and the Coast Guard‘s amazing video tape of their rescue of pilot Charles Brian Mellor, a reader of Flying Lessons made me aware of the role played by Denne Hoover of the Federal Aviation Administration who was working at the NORAD Command Center last Friday afternoon when the ferry pilot’s worried call first came in. Mellor reported that he might run out of fuel short of his destination.…

My correspondent’s account (below) has been confirmed by the FAA, so I share it with you, adding that of her participation in the event, Ms. Hoover modestly insisted she was simply part of a team effort. …

“The actual credit for the save belongs with Ms. Denee (sic) Hoover. She is the FAA rep who works in the NORAD Command Center. The pilot realized far more than 500 miles out he wouldn’t make it and didn’t have the gas to turn around. Ms. Hoover alerted me, the Command Center Director, and we alerted the folks in Hawaii. That action on her part gave the Coast Guard team the time to react.

This is not to take away from what the Coasties did on their end, but that pilot would definitely have been in the water for some time if not for the 3 hours lead time Ms. Hoover gave the rescue team to get in place and make the intercept.

No one will likely ever know or care about what really happened behind the scenes, but those of us on duty that night know the truth, and the real hero here is Ms. Denee Hoover, FAA professional.”…

Through the window of the room my three sons shared in 2001, they could lie in bed and watch airplanes on approach to New York City’s many airports. A few days after September 11, my youngest son, Joseph, then seven, asked me to close the blind. He was worried that the planes would fly through the window. …

A list of all the ways that air travel has changed since that day ten years ago is lengthy but the rise in the price of oil and the ramping up of air security were the most potent motivators of change. …

Airlines that could not meet the challenges failed while others merged to survive. Routes, schedules and on-board offerings were cut. Today air travelers complain …

Planes are crowded

Amenities are eliminated

Security is time-consuming and arbitrary

I can argue both sides of all these changes. Certainly they are responsible for the ubiquitous “hassle factor” of flying in the 21st century, yet one can’t dispute the results. Airlines are profitable again, more people fly to more places around the globe and all the while the price of air travel has remained more or less the same for decades. That’s right, I said decades. …

According to Victoria Day, a spokeswoman for the Air Transport Association, “In 1978, an average 3,000 mile round-trip domestic ticket cost about $255. In 2009, adjusting for inflation, that same ticket should have cost about $838,” she wrote to me in an email. Instead, “that ticket cost about $362, a 57 percent DECLINE in real terms.”…

Security? Well, bitch and moan all you want – you’ll do it anyway – but we’ve not had a successful attack on an airline in America since 9-11. That’s not just luck because from Richard Reid‘s shoes to Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab‘s shorts to the 2006 plot to blow up multiple airliners, Lord knows, there have been attempts. …

In this month’s column for Trains magazine, Don Phillips the retired aviation correspondent for the Washington Post opines that public fascination with “big things that move” is to be expected, because trains and planes are “the soul of drama.” …

He’s right. When I was a child, my dad used to drive my siblings and me to Miami International Airport where we would sit on lawn chairs at the edge of the runway and watch the planes take off and land. This was entertaining for hours and free for the taking. Who could imagine the “drama” of aviation would turn so ominous? …

When the terrorists boarded those airliners in Boston and Washington, DC they hijacked more than those four planes. They hijacked aviation itself and took it to a place from which there is no return. …

There’s a world of difference between how much trust the citizens of various nations have in their government. This is particularly obvious here in New Zealand where, while listening to a radio news show recently, I marveled as caller after caller expr… …

UPDATE April 20, 2011:Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood tells Gwen Ifill of PBS NewsHour, that the air traffic controller discussed below has been fired.

LaHood: Where the controller had guided a 737 Southwest flight to take a look at a small plane that was out of radio contact to see if something was going on. Completely violates procedures. You can’t guide a big plane over to look at a small plane. That’s not the way that’s done.”

But this calamitous spring, as the ceremony was about to get underway, it was marred by the headline-making news that a supervisor at the Reagan National Airport tower had fallen asleep on the overnight shift, leaving two airliners to land using see and be seen techniques. You can read more about that here. …

Well the NATCA convention-goers probably haven’t unpacked their suitcases but already they’re hearing about a new investigation, again not involving a union controller, but in the minds of the general public, really, what’s the difference? …

This evening, the Federal Aviation Administration announced it is looking into the decision of a supervising controller at the TRACON center in Jacksonville, Florida to send a Southwest Airlines plane to fly up close to a private plane to see if the Southwest pilots could determine why a private plane had been out of radio communication for more than an hour. …

Southwest Flight 821 was flying at twelve thousand feet en route from Phoenix to Orlando on Sunday night and was 10 miles behind and one thousand feet above a single engine Cirrus SR22. The Southwest pilots agreed to the controller’s request to eyeball the cockpit of the smaller plane. Approaching it the Southwest pilots radioed back that they could see two pilots in the small plane.…

Florida controllers may be understandably nervous about small airplanes that go nordo. This is eerily similar to the situation on the LearJet carrying golfer Payne Stewart in 1999. In that case, the pilots and passengers were incapacitated by hypoxia shortly after the flight departed Orlando and the plane flew on auto pilot until it ran out of fuel in South Dakota and crashed into a field.…

Nevertheless, sending a passenger plane to play fighter jet is wrong in all sorts of ways. The post-9-11 world has lengthy lists of procedures for how to respond to airplanes that go mysteriously silent, none of which include having passenger planes fly in close for a quick peek. …

The commercial flight and the Cirrus apparently landed without incident. Meanwhile the FAA says the controller has been suspended. At the risk of sounding redundant, you can be sure that everyone in the TRACON center, the folks in the Cirrus and the pilots of Flight 821 will all have a lot of ‘splaining to do. …

Much is being said today about the elevated temperature of discourse in American politics in light of the apparent attempted assassination of newly elected Arizona congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords on Saturday. Readers of Flying Lessons may remember that I’ve been writing, writing, and writing some more about how the increasingly hostile us-versus-them tone has seeped into aviation. …

“When you look at unbalanced people, how they respond to the vitriol that comes out of certain mouths about tearing down the government. The anger, the hatred, the bigotry that goes on in this country is getting to be outrageous,” the sheriff, Clarence W. Dupnik, said. I’m with Olbermann and Sheriff Dupnik. …

But there’s a fine line between seeing the color black and being the pot that calls it. Liberals don’t get a pass. Hurtful hyperbole, reckless ranting, trash talk define contemporary discourse from all quarters and in many parts of the world.…

No less a political stateswoman than the late Golda Meir of Israel opined famously, “Peace will come when Arabs love their children more than they hate us.” She’s been dead more than thirty years. Similar messages intended to reduce complex issues to a simple “I’m right and you’re wrong” continue to generate rancor. Ten months ago, the Wall Street Journal told the story of a young American Muslim who posted the home addresses of Trey Parker and Matt Stone online along with the suggestion that death was the likely outcome for the two producers of the “blasphemous” television show, South Park. …

Some people who I love are big fans of partisan television. On a recent visit to their home, I joined them in the living room to watch it for a while. As the carping rolled forth, my friends’ fury expanded, as if the words being broadcast had actual mass. It was like viewing the inflation of Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade balloons. I fear the consequences when acrimony exceeds our emotional ability to process it. I think I know what the consequences are. …

What does all this have to to with aviation? Really, I didn’t forget that’s how I got started this morning. We can’t change the entire world, but we can start in our little corner. I propose we look at the Tuscon shooting as our opportunity to get a little altitude on the dialogue right here in our industry. We can and do disagree on many issues, airline customer service, airport user fees, crew rest, security. Yep security. We may not like what that’s become but we can do better than the woman who wrote the letter below.…

The excerpt is part of a two-page diatribe sent to the TSA from an unhappy air traveler. The middle-aged Virginia matron who wrote it – and who I will not name, don’t ask – was displeased that the TSA confiscated and later wrote her a warning letter about the empty firearms magazine she accidentally toted into the security checkpoint in Colorado Springs. …

“If I were on a plane and Osama bin Laden tried to hijack it with an empty firearms magazine, I would kick that son of a bitch right in the balls and wait for someone in better physical condition to choke the jihad out of his worthless ass.…

Considering this issue took over 5 months to work its way through the plumbing over at DHS/TSA and amidst all the non-consensual balls and titty grabbing you guys are guilty of these days, I hardly think this is an issue. I’m going to go ahead an issue DHS/TSA with a WARNING NOTICE for being completely retarded in every aspect of air travel, especially lately.”…

Much is being said today about the elevated temperature of discourse in American politics in light of the apparent attempted assassination of newly elected Arizona congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords on Saturday. Readers of Flying Lessons may remember that I’ve been writing, writing, and writing some more about how the increasingly hostile us-versus-them tone has seeped into aviation … …

Can American Airlines get a break? Not this week. Today at noon, American Airlines Flight 2253 ran off the runway while landing at Jackson Hole, Wyoming. No one on board was hurt and the NTSB is investigating.

Trust me, these days, you don’t want to be American Airlines. Between this flight, and American pilot Chris Liu‘s coming out as the producer and narrator of a You Tube video calling aviation security at San Francisco Airport “a farce”, one might think the beleaguered Dallas-based company had its share of bad publicity, but that would fail to mention yesterday’s events. …

On Tuesday, American Airlines Flight 2585 was being unloaded after arriving from Boston at Miami International Airport. A baggage handler transferring checked bags from that plane to one bound for Jamaica set a suitcase down and it went “boom”. Then there was a fire. Then the bomb squad arrived. …

It turns out that the suitcase contained about 700 flammable bullet primers – paraphernalia for ammunition – rolled up in clothing and stuffed into the lining of the bag. Authorities arrested the bags’ owner, Massachusetts resident Orville Andrew Braham. …

As of this writing, I see they have charged Mr. Braham with illegally transporting ammunition. That Mr. Braham was reportedly arrested for trying to steal television sets off a truck at a big box store in Massachusetts in October, may seem peripheral, but here I think is what makes it relevant. …

Last night, while I was talking about aviation safety to cop/pilot/security expert Robb Powers he suggested that a giant step toward effective airport security would involve paying more attention to travelers and less to their belongings. Does a fellow who’s hidden explosive devices in his suitcase present himself differently from other, less emotionally-burdened passengers? I’m guessing yes. …

What Powers is talking about isn’t profiling, but it is centered on the traveler, on paying more attention to what’s right before our eyes. Is there something suspicious about the behavior of this individual? Airport security in some countries involves making conversation with travelers and listening with an educated ear and a mind tuned to the patterns of normal and abnormal behavior. …

But this is diametrically different from the experience most travelers have at airports in America. Here the focus is on bags, shoes, jackets, liquids, everything but on our eyes, which if I may paraphrase the poets, is the window to our thoughts. …

The Transportation Security Agency does engage in some passenger observation. I’ve seen the behavior detection agents working the lines at Reagan National Airport. These folks get a few weeks training in tell-tale behaviors and they are free to question would-be travelers if, in their judgment, a conversation seems warranted. But the behavior squad is a small fraction of a security machine that is overwhelmingly dominated by the labor and cost-intensive program that is all about stuff and and the supposition that everyone must be treated as a potential bad guy. …

It would take a different kind of TSA agent to be an effective screener of passengers. These agents would have to be released from the mind-numbing monitoring of x-ray machines and full body scanners and they would have to be given intensive training, treated as professionals and given license to exercise discretion about the steady stream of passengers who cross their path. …

We will never know what a respected, energized, trained and observant TSA agent might have noticed had he or she looked into the eyes Orville Braham and perhaps exchanged a word or two. But despite the luggage checks and sniffer dogs, the stuff in his bag traveled undetected.